The standard-definition DVD format is somewhat limiting in what kind of interaction can be programmed. Fortunately, this is changing…proponents of the HD-DVD and Blu-ray formats have oft-touted the advanced interactivity that can be built into a disc. Nevertheless, we haven’t seen many studios take advantage of that capability yet.

“Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift” was recently released by Universal on HD-DVD. This disc is one of the first to feature an advanced capability dubbed “U-Control”.

“Universal’s “U-Control” is a product of the HD DVD format’s iHD authoring environment, which allows for a variety of pre-encoded materials (video, audio, text overlays, etc.) to be stored on disc, and then accessed on-the-fly by users during playback. Multiple audio streams can be encoded on a disc and “mixed live” by the player for integrated supplemental audio content, picture-in-picture video streams can be displayed simultaneously, and even graphic overlays can be “mapped” to specific objects on the screen.”

I’m looking forward to seeing what other advanced interactivity is cooked up by content creators. I believe that for consumers at large to accept and upgrade to the new formats, studios are going to have to seriously leverage these capabilities. For many consumers, the picture quality differences are a moot point. Offering advanced content may well drive more to consider migrating to the high-definition formats.